Community service advocates and UNICEF say child poverty should be a national priority as the new Parliament session opens today.

The Australian Council of Social Service has released an updated report that shows even in an era of unprecedented prosperity, nearly 600,000 or 17.3 per cent of Australian children live in poverty.

The CEO of the National Council for Single Mothers, Terese Edwards, says tackling poverty can feel like an uphill struggle.

"It's an impossible concept to grasp unless you know someone personally or unless you are one of the children living in one of these families," Ms Edwards said.

"As much as it may not be politically appetising, just because we don't acknowledge it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist."

One of the world's leading experts in the field, Richard Wilkinson, says even though the poor in Australia may be relatively better off than in many other countries the stigma of living at the bottom of society is no less damaging.